SANTA CLARA, Cuba. – In the so-called Candonga de Saint Clarea site adjacent to the provincial hospitals where a variety of businesses selling merchandise converge, there are already more than seven stands dedicated exclusively to displaying study materials: backpacks, lunch boxes, pencils and notebooks… almost everything necessary for the start of the school year.
At the place, the self-employed also invite those present to opt for ridiculous discounts to buy dozens of socks, mechanical pencils and crayons. “These are original, they don’t stretch, they will last you all year, brought from abroad this very week,” suggests a saleswoman and shows a package of white socks with only three units at 2,000 pesos. At another of the stands they also offer with some discretion the blouses and shirts of uniforms in small sizes, the same ones that sell out easily at the points for the regulated sale, which began the first week of August.
A new skirt for primary school children costs 600 pesos and blouses and shirts 300. Two new outfits would be equivalent to the minimum wage of many state workers: “I will have to buy at least five shirts, one for each day of the week,” says Mariet Domínguez, a mother interested in the merchandise. “This year he will not be in school until he is in fifth grade, which is illogical, as if children do not grow at all in three years.”
The policy approved in Cuba for the sale of uniforms establishes the sale of two pieces to preschool and fifth grade students in the case of primary education through a list issued by Education, as specified with a note published this month in Cubadebate“The addition of other grades to the market is subject to the arrival of the fabric imported by the industry, which will be reported in due time,” the publication reads.
At the bottom of the same note, many users complained that they have to buy school clothes “on the sly” and at high prices. Liset, a resident of Arroyo Naranjo, specified that the store where she was supposed to buy told her that “the sizes they have are 22 and up” and that the smaller ones had not been delivered yet. “It is not easy that after waiting in line for several days, when it is your turn, the size you need is not there,” wrote the woman in the comments of the official media.
Many mothers are also posting on social media about the situation they are facing due to the lack of state supply of backpacks or lunch boxes at affordable prices, which is why they have to resort to the informal market to secure all these items before the start of September.
“In my time there were Thaba backpacks and those little mesh bags that cost a few kilos in CUC,” recalls Suselis, a Santa Clara mother of two children looking for notebook covers in the “La Campana” neighborhood. “Now everything is imported, from SMEs or by MLC. I see those videos on Facebook of stores from other countries, and mothers buying all the supplies for their children and it makes me so angry that I can’t explain it.”
Two years ago, managers of the Thaba Saddlery Company They explained that the factory was “on the verge of dying” in 2020 due to a lack of raw materials and that they intended to “have productive continuity” by directing part of their sales to “foreign exchange stores”. At the moment, at least in Santa Clara, not even in MLC establishments are there the bags of this brand that were sold in the so-called shopping mallsIn addition, in the stores of the state chain Artex, backpacks made by private businesses are sold for more than 2,000 pesos.
If the holidays were hard for most families with school-aged children, the return to school means a huge investment that includes a good part of the study material. “Last year, there were not enough notebooks for all the subjects,” says Mariet. “In the case of my nephew, who started first year, the writing notebooks, the typesetters… everything had to be bought from private individuals who print them on their own. The teachers themselves send you out to the candonga to buy these things.”
In addition to the above, and as if that were not enough, Cuban mothers must also worry about their children’s nutrition in schools. In the group “Revolico Babies and Children in Santa Clara”, user Patricia Gómez asked for advice to the other members about what to send as “reinforcement” to her daughter because the lunches “break the soul.”
One of the users who answered her question specified that at her granddaughter’s semi-boarding school the aforementioned lunch consisted one day of “rice and a small piece of guava.” Others assured that they almost always gave grains, bread and, sometimes, some kind of stew, but almost never a main dish. “When they give them, it is minced meat,” added one woman. “At my son’s school, unfortunately, there are children who do not bring anything, because their situation is very difficult, poverty, because it must be said in those words.”
Contacted via Messenger, Patricia, the mother in question, who works as a manicurist and feels at an advantage over other state workers, presumes that she will have to invest too much when September comes, assuming that she gets good teachers and does not have to pay a tutor as well. “I have already spent a lot of money and school has not even started. I can only think about lunches and snacks. If I don’t get out of here before then, her education will cost me a lot.”
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